OmertĂ reduces analytically to ordinary corporate trade-secret protection.
Evidence
In conclusion, the notion of omertà as a culturally specific code of behavior essential to understanding the mafia seems to be, if not mistaken, at least superfluous. On the one hand, the policy of discretion is analytically identical to the measures taken by many different businesses to protect their industrial secrets. IBM, for instance, spends $50 million a year to guard its secrets and exerts particularly energetic pressure on its employees, both when they are recruited and when they leave (Freemantle 1986: 63ff.). On the other hand, it is just one aspect of a general attitude toward information gathering and manipulation—an attitude which relies as much on concealment as on revelation. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 103
Categorization
- CANDY: The IBM-$50-million-a-year-to-guard-secrets tidbit is an easy elevator conversation staple.
- XREF: Reinforces the reader’s thesis that the mafia is a business like any other — the unglamorizing move that Gambetta’s whole project rests on.